Story 43 - Retrans to Nui Chua Chan (Hill 837)

In search for SAS Trooper David Fisher

By Denis Hare

SAS Patrol 11

A five man 3 Sqn, Special
Air Service (SAS) Patrol “Callsign Bravo Nine Sierra One
One” operating in the north east area of the Australian Area
of Operation (AO) after 7 days, engaged eight well armed
North Vietnam Army (NVA) after one of the enemy appeared to
have spotted the patrol on the 27 Sept 1969 at about 8:35am.
The fire fight resulted in 4 confirmed enemy dead with the
patrol withdrawing about 300 metres where it was then
detected by a larger enemy force near the Suoi Trong Creek.
The Patrol Commander received slight shrapnel wounds from
two RPG rounds as about 30 enemy were sweeping towards the
patrol. The patrol withdrew using fire and movement,
and once they reached the cover of the primary jungle, they
stopped firing and remained motionless, standing back to
back in a thick clump of vegetation.

Away in the east they could
hear firing from another group of NVA and an enemy officer
was blowing a whistle, directing the advance against the
SAS. At 11am the patrol could hear the enemy firing single
shots, trying to draw their fire. At this stage the
patrol commander told the radio operator to obtain
communications with the SAS Comcen at Nui Dat to arrange a
hot extraction. The radio operator threw only about
two metres of antenna wire and started tapping the morse key
on the small high frequency AN/PRC-64 Radio Set. In
his excitement, he forgot to give his callsign.

The patrol continued to
stand back to back with the enemy moving all around.
Quietly they attached their Swiss seats and waited for the
helicopter. In less then 30 minutes, the patrol heard
the helicopters in the distance vectoring to their location
by the patrol radio set AN/URC-10 beacon. The patrol
established voice communications with the Albatross lead and
after a few minutes, the gunship started their run to the
patrol. The patrol threw smoke, the gunships started
firing as the lead helicopter skillfully dropped its rope 20
metres down into a gap in the canopy. The SAS patrol
clipped on and were lifted about 10 metres but one of the
troopers became caught in the fork of a tree. The
radio operator spoke to the aircraft via the AN/URC-10 Radio
Set and the helicopter lowered sufficiently for the trooper
to extricate himself.

As soon as they were clear
of the jungle the gunships moved in and the helicopter
gathered speed. The ropes were all at different
lengths and the Patrol 2IC, Private David Fisher was on the
longest rope. Suddenly the other members realized that
Fisher was missing; he had fallen from a height of about 80
metres back through the jungle canopy. The following
chilling radio message was heard at the SAS Comcen from the
Albatross flight: “Patrol member
dropped off rope during extraction.”

The search for David Fisher

The helicopter, with the
remaining four members of the patrol hanging on their ropes,
travelled about two kilometres, landed and allowed the
patrol members to scramble aboard. They then returned
to the site where they thought Fisher had fallen but could
see no sign of him.

A Sioux, accompanied by a
light fire team, continued the searching until a nine man
SAS patrol, “Callsign Bravo Nine Sierra One Six”,
commanded by the OC, 3 Sqn, SAS rappelled into the jungle to
begin the ground search at 4:30pm. The next day at 4pm
(28 Sept 1969) they were joined by C Company, 9RAR. SAS
Patrol 16 was extracted by helicopter winching and returned
to Nui Dat. On 1 Oct 1969 the 9RAR Company was
replaced by B Company, 6RAR. A SAS Liaison Officer
(LO) and SAS Radio Operator remained with the infantry while
they searched for six days for the MIA trooper without
success.

Retrans deployed for the search

Back at Nui Dat, it was
clear to the Task Force Commander that VHF communications in
the search area were poor. SAS RASigs had in the past
used Nui Chua Chan (Hill 837) as a “Relay Site”. The
837 metre Hill was just over the province border 50km
(approx) NNE of Nui Dat, about 15km from the search area.
It had a major US Army 53rd Signal Battalion
communication installation and was used also as an American
Long-Range Recce Patrol (LRRP) relay. Access to the
site was by air only.

104 Sig Sqn was tasked to
provide a VHF retrans site on Hill 837 to provide the
searching infantry good VHF communications back to Nui Dat.
However a special request came from SAS that the retrans
detachment receive morse code from the SAS LO and other
patrols that would operate in the search area.

The task force signal
squadron had the morse skills embedded in its radio troop,
however few had used their skills since arriving in Vietnam,
as all communications were voice.

The unit quickly searched
for the Radio Operators with the skill required for the very
urgent task.

Cpl Richard “Rick” Male was
available at the Squadron after just returning from
Operation Neppabunna (FSPB Serle and Wells) with 9RAR.

Signalman David “Murf”
Murphy, a national serviceman, had topped his radio operator
course in morse but was located at Xuan Loc. He was quickly
pulled back to the unit by helicopter.

The third member of the
detachment was Signalman John “Dinga” Bell. John aged
19, had only just arrived in Vietnam the week before but was
fresh from 1 Sig Regt, where he had just completed several
exercises using morse code.

A Huey delivered the radio
detachment to Hill 837 in the afternoon of the 28 Sept 1969,
with the detachment members only having time to practice
morse by reading messages to each other in “dits” and
“dashs” as no equipment was setup for morse training at the
unit.

The detachment quickly setup
and started its communication task.

David Murphy was to later
write:

“Our slight doubts about the quality of their Morse
transmissions disappeared with the very first message.
It came as smooth as silk, as good as the machine we had
trained on. The trooper was sending it on a keypad
strapped to his knee, hardly ideal conditions. Messages
came coded in groups of five letters, tapped out at times
decided by the patrol leader. The code was not known
to us. We merely had to read it back to the patrol for
confirmation, and then send it on to SAS HQ at Nui Dat by
voice.”

The detachment manned the
Radio Sets 24 hours, 7 days a week. While the SAS
patrols had two routine signal schedules using One Time
Letter Pad (OTLP) at fixed times each day (each patrol at a
different time), the relay station was always monitoring for
non scheduled traffic, like an urgent hot extraction
request.

The detachment had arrived
at an over crowded site and had to hot bed it with American
signalers between radio shifts for a period, until bed
spaces for them, could be allotted.

Nui Chua Chan (Hill 837)

The communication base was
on the top of a very steep mountain within the top five to
ten metres. A road could never be built up to it in
the war, with all resupply by air.

David
Murphy was to later write:

“The
US Army had blasted away part of the mountain top, as best
they could, sprayed some agent orange, squashed in a company
of infantry, operators, technicians and a forest of aerials
and towers of microwave dishes. They then called it a
communication base.”

While the Americans had
regular days away from the Hill, the Australian signalers
remained until replaced.

The Detachment had a bird’s
eye view of the war from their 837 metre perch, which
included bombing by fighter jets and B52 bombers plus night
time Spooky action. Hill 837 also came under rocket
and mortar attack, a number of times, while the retrans
detachment was at the site.

The detachment did receive a
number of visits including the Radio Troop Commander, Lt
Peter Diddams. One was fondly remembered by John Bell who
later wrote:

“I
remember the Troop Commander bring our voting papers for the
general election back home, in late October. I
was only 19 and got to vote. Voting age at that time
was 21, but soldiers in Vietnam were given the privilege of
being able to vote.”

Radio Equipment

The 104 Sig Sqn detachment
had two Radio Sets AN/GRC-125 (vehicular/ground station of
the Radio Set AN/PRC-25) with retrans cable arrangement plus
additional AN/PRC-25 Radio Sets, RC-292 antennas, etc.

The SAS Patrols when
relaying using Hill 837 had a special morse key arrangements
from an old A510 Morse, adapted for use on the AN/PRC-25
Radio Set. This was done with a small modification
contained in a matchbox size adaptor, which plugged into a
handset terminal. This was an excellent innovation that gave
the option of VHF using morse code, which solved the noise
problem while providing the convenience of instant
communications giving the Patrols greater safety.

Conclusion

Dinga Bell was the last of
the original detachment members to be replaced on the Hill
in early 1970, with 3 Sqn, SAS being replaced by 1 Sqn, SAS
in Feb 1970. The 104 Sig Sqn retrans site stayed at
Hill 837 until the 8 Jul 1970 when the 1 Sqn, SAS
requirement ceased. It allowed the Australian Task
Force good VHF communications to the most Northern parts of
the AO, while supporting the SAS task.

104 Sig Sqn played its part
in the search for the SAS Trooper in 1969 but Private David
Fisher was never given up by the Australian Vietnam
Veterans. After 39 years in Oct 2008 he was found by
the searching veterans from Operation Aussies Home and his
remains were returned to Australia for burial by his family
and mates. Lest
we forget

References:

1.
A Tour Out of this World (Chapter - On Top of the Mountain)
by David Murphy2.
SAS Phantoms of the Jungle by David Horner3.
152 Signal Squadron – The History of the Corps of Signals in
SAS 1957-1982. Written by Norman
Bainbridge4.
104 Sig Sqn War Diaries AWM95-6-2-30 to AWM95-6-2-405.
SAS War Diaries – AWM95-7-12-17 and AWM95-7-12-186.
RSL News Summer 2009, Page 20 – “I helped in the search for
David Fisher”
by Cpl Richard (Rick) Male.7.
Emails with 104 Sig Sqn members involved in 1969